Editorial : land scam in Karnataka – an appeal to honourable supreme court of India

The recent ordinance by government of Karnataka to regularize land deals is envisaging to legalize the crimes of rich. The illegal land conversions , land encroachments , encroachment of civic amenities made by the richare being legalized with levying a pittance as penalty in the name of public welfare . Whereas the land worth at today’s market prices are 10’s of thousands of croreit is only wefare of the rich & mighty . IT IS GOING TO BE MOTHER OF ALL SCAMS.

The authorities evict poor tribal people from their ancestral forest area in the name of conservation , evict tribal people from villages in the name of development without proper rehabilitation measures. The government is not giving land rights to slum dwellers , poor , dalitsover the land they are dwelling , the government is deaf to appeals of dalits for land rights. However the same government is sympathetic to rich who have encroached land & built huge commercial complexes worth crores violating all norms with total disregard to civic amenity or safety.

Hereby , HRW appeals to honourable supreme court of India , to annul this ordinance of government of Karnataka which seeks to legalize land crimes. Jai hind . vande mataram.

THE CLOUT OF LAND MAFIA IN INDIA -the governments daring to by-pass judiciary

An appeal ( PIL ) to the honourable supreme court of India

The recent attempts by government of India & other state governments to legalise land grabbings by enacting new land laws in the name of public welfare is farce . while crores of people are without shelter & are living on streets , people in slums , tribal lands are struggling for land rights since decades the governments were mum & deaf. Now , as the rulers themselves & their cronies have built illegal constructions running into crores they are shedding crocodile tears in the name of public welfare. In india, various state governments have enacted " town municipal / city corporation laws & building laws" , to ensure orderly growth of cities & towns , to ensure the safety of buildings & it's occupants , to ensure the safety of pedestrians & road users.

There is wide spread corruption in the corporation / municipal authorities. For a price officials have converted CA sites to commercial purposes , authorised deviations / encroachments of public lands like foot paths , drainages , parking space , set-off , etc. The corporation officials themselves are violating city master plans. Even before authorising the conversions & encroachments of lands , the corporation officials are not making alternate arrangements. By all these corrupt deeds many of the corporation officilas have become millionaires . however more & more road accidents are taking place , building collapses & fire tragedies are occurring , during heavy rain falls water is getting clogged – ALL THESE RESULTING IN LOSS OF HUMAN LIVE & PROPERTIES. In recent days numerous murders have taken place over the real estate issues . THE CRIMINAL LAND GRABBERS MADE DEATH THREATS & FORCED THE PIL APPLICANT IN THE KARNATAKA HIGH COURT ABOUT LAND GRABBINGS IN KORAMANGALA LAYOUT BANGALORE. The government of karnataka instead of protecting the PIL applicant & upholding the law has taken sides with the land grabbers.

The state governments of karnataka & delhi has got M.L.As & officials who have themselves violated building laws & grabbed govt lands. Now , the two govts are contemplating to bring in laws regularising these land grabbing crimes for a pittance as penalty. All to by-pass judiciary. The governments are least bothered about the lives of poor & only too caring towards the land grabbing criminals.

The same governments have not yet given land rights to poor slum dwellers / dalits , land rights to tribals living in forest since centuries , land rights to poor agricultural labourers, where as it is full of concern towards rich & mighty land grabbers – criminals. Bottom line – whatever be the magnitude of crime if you are rich & mighty law will be bended to suit you , by bad luck if you are a poor folk you are bound to suffer being on the right side of law also.

Hereby , HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH urges requests the honourable supreme court of india , to register this as a PIL , to provide protection to the PIL applicant in bangalore & to take appropriate actions against the GOK & GOD nipping at bud their illegal motives to regularise land grabbings.

During the auction of above sick industry the land usage was for industrial purpose only. so, people with other commercial objectives were not allowed to participate in the auction. Thereby, the final auctioned amount was very much less than the market value. This has a direct bearing on employees of that industry , lending banks , govt dept , etc who have all put forward their claims for dues from that industry. noW, all of them are getting very much less than what is due from the closed company. A loss of crores of rupees to banks , govt , employees has been made.
Now in a backdoor move the M.U.D.A , K.I.A.D.B , M.C.C are moving to give land usage conversion to the new occupier. Is it right & justified ? should not they conduct auction once again or charge market value to the new owner.

The land mafia which has links with political leadership & top govt servants in the state, is running business widely in & around bangalore,mysore & other major towns. The authorities like city corporation , B.D.A, M.U.D.A , K.I.A.D.B , etc are denotifying the lands meant for public welfare in favour of land mafia. The authorities have earmarked these lands for public welfare ie parks , schools , hospitals at the planning stage itself for current & future needs of the people. In most cases the land mafia has illegally occupied the lands , built commercial complexes & sold it for crores of rupees.

1. the authorities are not demolishing these illegal structures & prosecuting the occupiers.

2. In some cases the authorities are denotifying , regularizing those illegal occupations by levying a pittance as penalty which is very much less than the market value.

3. In some cases for example a notified site for school is alloted to an educational trust. They build 2 rooms in 25% of the site & state that this is free school meant for weaker sections. After a year or two , they state before the authority that to run this school they need funds. So they are planning to build commercial complexes around the school site & by the rent collected from shops they will run the school. In this manner sites meant for schools , hospitals , temples & other social organisations apply for conversion of land usage & use major portion of the land for commercial purposes.

Hereby , HRW urges the govt of karnataka & other authorities ,

1. to clearly demarcate the govt lands & announce it boldly to the public.

2. To clearly demarcate lands meant for public amenities both for current & future usage.

3. To clearly demarcate lands required for town planning say 20 years down the line.

4. To clearly mention in such plans the purpose it is reserved for ie parks , hospitals , schools , etc.

5. To impartially act against illegal occupiers – rich or poor.

6. Say while denotifying a land meant for school an alternate land for school must be incorporated in the original plan.

7. Before denotification public objections must be called for & considered responsibly.

8. After denotification the land must be sold at the market rate not the govt rate.

9. In case of land usage conversion also the objections from the public must be called for & considered responsibly.

10. After land usage conversion an alternate land must be incorporated in the plan for the original use.

11. In case of land usage conversion also the occupier must be charged at the market value.

12. To declare annually the property details of all officials with denotifying / land usage conversion authorities together with details of their family member's properties with provision for public scrutiny, cross checking.

13. To ruthlessly prosecute the corrupt officials & ministers.

14. To make public the report of past district magistrate mysore mr. T.M. VIJAYA BHASKAR about illegal land dealings in & around mysore. Also the action taken report.

Different political parties are trading charges against each other about illegalities in the mysore-bangalore expressway project. Grave mistakes have been committed by the previous state governments. The saving grace is judiciary has taken note of it. The fundamental principle behind land acquisitions by the governments is to use that acquired lands for public welfare. As the govt acquires the land with this noble intentions even the land looser contents himself with compensation at govt rate. Always the govt rate is much below market value. If at all the govt wants to give out that acquired land to a private party for private use or for the use of a
selected few, the govt must give prevailing market rate to the land looser. In such cases the govt does not have authority to force the land owner to sell his property.

In this mysore-bangalore 4 lane expressway project, following inconsistencies are there,

1. this road is not for free public use, but only for those who pays the toll fees.

2. The luxurious resorts , townships , etc which are to be built alongside this road are not open for free public usage but only for the rich who can afford it.

3. The govt has concluded this deal in a hush-hush manner.

4. Any disputes raised by this project should be addressed to international arbiter at london which a poor land owner or general public can ill-afford.

5. The govt has not paid the prevailing market value to the land loosers.

6. The govt has not given the option to land owners not to sell their property.

7. This whole project is for rich , built by the rich for the rich & not meant for public welfare.

The govt must give back the lands to the owners who wants it back & must pay the market value to those willing to sell. As this project is built by wealthy people for wealthy people why cann't they cough- up market value?

CRIMES BY BANGALORE DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY ( B.D.A)
AGAINST A POOR WOWAN
The B.D.A flouts it's own rules & spreads red carpet for big land developers & land grabbers. B.D.A posting is a huge money spinner for corrupt officials. The corrupt B.D.A officials work
hand in glove with criminal elements & rowdies. They illegally evict genuine allottees who are poor & without any connections from allotted prime lands & sell-off those prime land to the highest bidder of bribe. The poor fellow is re-alloted lands in backward areas & in some cases left in the lurch.

Now , take the following case. Mr. S.D. chandrashekaraiah a poor old man aged around 80 years was allotted with house no.185, kumaraswamy lay-out, first block, bangalore in 1978 vide letter no. 310/267/BDA/ADM/KMRSL(H)/78-79 dt 11/08/1978.

The chairman of B.D.A has allotted the built house on lease cum sale basis. The poor old man mr. S.D.chandrashekaraiah complied with all the rules & in accordance with it even deposited 25% of the house cost in B.D.A'S account. However when he went over to his allotted house for residing in it, he found out some rowdy elements were already residing there. He complained about this matter to the legal owner of the house ie B.D.A . the B.D.A officials didn't take steps
to evict the illegal encroachers nor did they make any complaint to the police. His appeals to B.D.A, chief minister of karnataka , etc fell on deaf ears. Hurt by this gross injustice & mounting financial burdens the poor old man died.

Subsequently, the poor man's daughter smt. Nagalakshmi who was also very poor , appealed to the B.D.A authorities once again , to evict illegal encroachers from her father's allotted house. This time the corrupt B.D.A officials played a different game. They showed her a vacant house, gave her oral instructions to live in that vacant house & told her that they will regularise it in due course. The hapless poor woman took huge loans & repaired the house fit for occupation. Just before she was to occupy that house , corrupt B.D.A officials once again planted rowdy elements in that house. Once again the poor woman was cheated. She lost her house, on top of it her loan burden mounted.

Till date, that poor woman is suffering from these gross injustices of B.D.A . SHAMELESS B.D.A OFFICIALS who take thousands of rupees salary & perks every month, all at the expense of tax-payer has not even cared to rectify the injustice. Thereby, they are violating the poor woman's fundamental & human rights.

Personal wealth is distributed so unevenly across the world that the richest two per cent of adults own more than 50 per cent of the world’s assets while the poorest half hold only 1 per cent of wealth.

A survey released on Tuesday shows that middle-income countries with high growth rates still have a long way to go before they have a hope of catching up with the levels of prosperity of the richest.

Adults with more than $2,200 of assets were in the top half of the global wealth league table, while those with more than $61,000 were in the top 10 per cent, according to the data from the World Institute fpr Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-Wider).

To belong to the top 1 per cent of the world’s wealthiest adults you would need more than $500,000, something that 37m adults have achieved.

So much of the world’s wealth is concentrated in few hands that if all the world’s wealth was distributed evenly, each person would have $20,500 of assets to use.

Almost 90 per cent of the world’s wealth is held in North America, Europe and high-income Asian and Pacific countries, such as Japan and Australia.

While North America has 6 per cent of the world’s adult population, it accounts for 34 per cent of household wealth.

The concentration of wealth in different countries varies considerably, with the top 10 per cent in the US holding 70 per cent of the country’s wealth, compared with 61 per cent in France, 56 per cent in the UK, 44 per cent in Germany and 39 per cent in Japan.

According to Anthony Shorrocks, the director of UNU-Wider, the number of wealthy individuals in a country depends on the size of the population, the average wealth and its inequality.

“China fails to feature strongly among the super-rich because average wealth is modest and wealth is evenly spread by international standards”, he said.

As countries grow richer, their population changes how it holds wealth, according to the report.

In developing countries, property, particularly land and farm assets are important, while cash savings tend to dominate in middle-income counties.

Only in certain advanced countries such as the US and the UK with developed financial sectors is there a strong appetite for holding equities and other more sophisticated financial assets.

Debt is also low in poor countries because financial institutions do not exist to allow people to borrow. Take for instance in India the so called IT POWER – PEOPLE ARE BERELY SURVIVING ON Rs.13 per dayroughly around 12 cents per day.

In contrast, the authors say “many people in high-income countries have negative net worth and, somewhat paradoxically, are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth.”

Wealth is difficult to measure even in the most advanced countries, so the research was based on painstaking compilation of aggregate and survey data for the 38 countries of the world where it exists and statistical models for the rest of the world.

I am writing to express my deep concern about the death in custody of Ogulsapar Muradova.

I call on the authorities in Turkmenistan to conduct a thorough, prompt, and independent investigation into the cause of her death. I urge you to keep Ogulsapar Muradova’s relatives informed of all steps of the investigation and to make the results public.

Amnesty International adopted Annakurban Amanklychev and Sapardurdy Khadzhiev as prisoners of conscience, detained for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression in defence of human rights, and has called for their prompt and unconditional release.

SHOW-CAUSE NOTICE TO DEPUTY COMMISSIONER , MYSORE & DEPUTY REGISTRAR OF SOCIETIES MYSORE
In mysore , many non-governamental organisations ( NGO ) have mushroomed with the stated objective of serving the poor , under privileged of the society. thereby , they have got preferrential allotment of government lands at subsidised rates , instruments & equipments at concessional rates , got tax cuts. they are getting government grants & international grants. however these NGOs are functioning as pure commercial enterprises , the office bearers pocketing the money earned by their organisation . they have scant regard for the welfare of dalits , poor.
these NGOs are running hospitals , schools , colleges , marriage halls & commercial complexes. the office bearers are swindling the money by fake bills & receipts. these NGOs are not transparent in their actions , only their cronies are admitted as volunteers & members. they don't allow ,outsiders to become volunteers or members of their associations , lest the truth come out. HRW sought information from certain NGOs in mysore about their activities as per the RTI Act , offerred to become volunteer & member of their association , no reply till date. the swindling of public money to the tune of lakhs of rupees by NGOs is only possible with the connivance of your department officials. hereby , HRW offers it's conditional service to your department to apprehend criminals , are you ready ?
previously, HRW has brought to your notice these isues , no reply till date. your inaction in this matter aids the criminals and violates the fundamental / human rights of the public , why not legal prosecution be initiated against you ? do reply within 30 days.

SHOW-CAUSE NOTICE TO COMMISSIONER , MYSORE CITY CORPORATION & COMMISSIONER , M.U.D.A
In mysore , many food products sold in shops , bakeries contains harmful ingradients. the health department of MCC is not properly checking on these shops , bakeries , sweet marts & sellers of soft drinks. also , fake medicines & medicines without the stated ingradients are being sold in medical shops. these actions are causing health damages to the public.
In mysore , various builders , building owners have encroached government lands , violated building bye-laws and illegally converted the land usage. many housing co-operative societies have indulged in illegal transactions , developed sites violating the norms. this is only possible with the connivance of your department officials. hereby , HRW offers it's conditional service to your department in apprehending the criminals , are you ready ?
HRW has brought to your notice some of those issues , no reply till date why ? your inaction in this matter is aiding the criminals and violates the fundamental / human rights of the public. why not legal prosecution be initiated against you ? do reply within 30 days. refer DPG/X/2006/80073 , DARPG/E/2006/05919 , CN - 811FAN , 804 RDI , 151 LJG